Kayla Sawyer - Student Chosen

 After reading the trail blogs for assignment two and the final research paper, I learned a lot about the effect of being outside on the brain and on someone's overall mood. According to many outside sources, walking and being outside can help decrease ruminative thinking. From this finding, I have decided to spend more time outdoors to positively impact my own mental health. For the past few days, I have been walking around the neighborhood when possible, because I have realized how important it is to be outside, even during the winter. I am good at being outside and active during the summer, as I live at the beach, however, when the weather changes, it is a lot harder for me to go outside and I notice a significant decrease in my mental health.

In my essay, I talk about hiking as a form of therapy, and how important it is to spend quality time outdoors to increase someone's mood. I enjoyed writing my paper on this because I feel as though it helped motivate me to spend more time outdoors, so I can see an effect on my own mental health. I also wrote another post about the impacts of urbanization on mental health, and how important it is to spend time in the woods rather than an urban setting.